Burning Down the House

Few things give a writer more joy that finding the spark of a story arc flashing through their mind! Quickly running to pen and paper, pencil and napkin, fingers and keyboard – the rush is on to scribble the synopsis quickly. We’re all building a rudimentary fire with two pieces of soft wood and intense physical exertion. The last thing we need to do is take a deep breath and blow out the slight spark and have to start all over again.

From concept to completion, we nurture our work – again, let me bring in the fire analogy. Without constant feeding and stirring, rearranging the logs and the slight embers, the fire will die and you’ll be out in the cold.

I’m an organic writer. Translation: I have at least three books going at all times. I’ve been curious how other writers find their rhythm. Do you awaken to coffee and classical music and dive into the pool head first or feet first? How about the dreaded belly flop? Ever had one of those? I have, literally and figuratively.

Right now, I have about fifteen irons in the fire, all of them being furiously jostled and jangled in an effort to keep the fire from going out. The motion is dizzying, the sparks are flying all around me, albeit often uncontrollably. Yet I keep the stirring the fire – somehow.

Erotic Romance and Stretching the Boundaries

I recently gave one of my rough manuscripts to a beta-reader that I've known for less than a year. She's been reading work for other writers, so I felt confident that she would be able to offer good insight into my writing. I don't ask my beta-readers to be editors, mind you. I ask for their OPINION about the story.

Three days after I sent the first manuscript, I received an angry telephone call. I'll paraphrase: "Your work is trash! Why does the sex have to be so graphic? Nobody wants to read that kind of garbage!"  Geesh! I'd sent her one of the manuscripts with tame sex. I would have blown her mind with the stuff I've written since I became an adult.

That got me to thinking, so I did a little research. Romance Fiction, the genre which includes erotica, accounted for over $1 billion in sales in the United States alone in 2010. That's huge. Then I thought about the genre of romance and how many different levels of heat are available to the reader. Like eating peppers, you can get it mild or flaming hot, and not all of us can handle the flaming hot. However, should the consumer be limited to only the Bell variety of pepper?

PayPal made the decision to require publishers who do business with them to basically clean it up or lose their services. PayPal, by their own standards, would restrict the sale of Fanny Hill based on the title alone. Ridiculous.

There are hundreds of traditional romance writers who may see their income (and their creative freedom) caged in bondage because of PayPal.  Of course, the market will come up with an alternative, and I predict that PayPal will lose their market share of internet commerce business.

As for me, I'm going to keep writing my "scotch bonnet" novels.